by Ken Follett
"Because you're too young."
"That's stupid." Even as he spoke, Merthin knew he should not be so sure: adults often were stupid. But Philemon's assumption of superior knowledge irritated him, especially after he had shown confidence in front of Caris.
He left the children and walked over to a group of men waiting to use a target. He recognized one of them: an exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered man called Mark Webber. Mark noticed the bow and spoke to Merthin in a slow, amiable voice. "Where did you get that?"
"I made it," Merthin said proudly.
"Look at this, Elfric," Mark said to his neighbor. "He's made a nice job of it."
Elfric was a brawny man with a sly look. He gave the bow a cursory glance. "It's too small," he said dismissively. "That'll never fire an arrow to penetrate a French knight's armor."
"Perhaps not," Mark said mildly. "But I expect the lad's got a year or two to go before he has to fight the French."
John Constable called out: "We're ready, let's get started. Mark Webber, you're first." The giant stepped up to the line. He picked up a stout bow and tested it, bending the thick wood effortlessly.
The constable noticed Merthin for the first time. "No boys," he said.
"Why not?" Merthin protested.
"Never mind why not, just get out of the way."
Merthin heard some of the other children snigger. "There's no reason for it!" he said indignantly.
"I don't have to give reasons to children," John said. "All right, Mark, take your shot."
Merthin was mortified. The oily Philemon had proved him wrong in front of everyone. He turned away from the targets.
"I told you so," said Philemon.
"Oh, shut up and go away."
"You can't make me go away," said Philemon, who was six inches taller than Merthin.
Ralph put in: "I could, though."
Merthin sighed. Ralph was unfailingly loyal, but he did not see that for him to fight Philemon would only make Merthin look like a weakling as well as a fool.
"I'm leaving anyway," said Philemon. "I'm going to help Brother Godwyn." He walked off.
The rest of the children began to drift away, seeking other curiosities. Caris said to Merthin: "You could go somewhere else to try the bow." She was obviously keen to see what would happen.
Merthin looked around. "But where?" If he was seen shooting unsupervised, the bow might be taken from him.
"We could go into the forest."
Merthin was surprised. Children were forbidden to go into the forest. Outlaws hid there, men and women who lived by stealing. Children might be stripped of their clothes, or made into slaves, and there were worse dangers that parents only hinted at. Even if they escaped such perils, the children were liable to be flogged by their fathers for breaking the rule.
But Caris did not seem to be afraid, and Merthin was reluctant to appear less bold than she. Besides, the constable's curt dismissal had made him feel defiant. "All right," he said. "But we'll have to make sure no one sees us."
She had the answer to that. "I know a way."
She walked toward the river. Merthin and Ralph followed. A small three-legged dog tagged along. "What's your dog's name?" Merthin asked Caris.
"He's not mine," she said. "But I gave him a piece of moldy bacon, and now I can't shake him off."
They walked along the muddy bank of the river, past warehouses and wharves and barges. Merthin covertly studied this girl who had so effortlessly become the leader. She had a square, determined face, neither pretty nor ugly, and there was mischief in her eyes, which were a greenish color with brown flecks. Her light brown hair was done in two plaits, as was the fashion among affluent women. Her clothes were costly, but she wore practical leather boots rather than the embroidered fabric shoes preferred by noble ladies.
She turned away from the river and led them through a timber yard, and suddenly they were in scrubby woodland. Merthin felt a pang of unease. Now that he was in the forest, where there might be an outlaw lurking behind any oak tree, he regretted his bravado; but he would be ashamed to back out.
They walked on, looking for a clearing big enough for archery. Suddenly Caris spoke in a conspiratorial voice. "You see that big holly bush?"
"Yes."
"As soon as we're past it, crouch down with me and keep silent."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
A moment later Merthin, Ralph, and Caris squatted behind the bush. The three-legged dog sat with them and looked hopefully at Caris. Ralph began to ask a question, but Caris hushed him.
A minute later a little girl came by. Caris jumped out and grabbed her. The girl screamed.
"Be quiet!" Caris said. "We're not far from the road, and we don't want to be heard. Why are you following us?"
"You've got my dog, and he won't come back!" the child sobbed.
"I know you, I met you in church this morning," Caris said to her in a softer voice. "All right, there's nothing to cry about, we aren't going to do you any harm. What's your name?"
"Gwenda."
"And the dog?"
"Hop." Gwenda picked up the dog, and he licked her tears.
"Well, you've got him now. You'd better come with us, in case he runs off again. Besides, you might not be able to find your way back to town on your own."
They went on. Merthin said: "What has eight arms and eleven legs?"
"I give up," Ralph said immediately. He always did.
"I know," said Caris with a grin. "It's us. Four children and the dog." She laughed. "That's good."
Merthin was pleased. People did not always get his jokes; girls almost never did. A moment later he heard Gwenda explaining it to Ralph: "Two arms, and two arms, and two arms, and two arms makes eight," she said. "Two legs..."
They saw no one, which was good. The small number of people who had legitimate business in the forest--woodcutters, charcoal burners, iron smelters--would not be working today, and it would be unusual to see an aristocratic hunting party on a Sunday. Anyone they met was likely to be an outlaw. But the chances were slim. It was a big forest, stretching for many miles. Merthin had never traveled far enough to see the end of it.
They came to a wide clearing and Merthin said: "This will do."
There was an oak tree with a broad trunk on the far edge, about fifty feet away. Merthin stood side-on to the target, as he had seen the men do. He took out one of his three arrows and fitted the notched end to the bowstring. The arrows had been as difficult to make as the bow. The wood was ash, and they had goose-feather flights. He had not been able to get iron for the points, so he had simply sharpened the ends then scorched the wood to harden it. He sighted on the tree, then pulled back on the bowstring. It took a great effort. He released the arrow.
It fell to the ground well short of the target. Hop the dog scampered across the clearing to fetch it.
Merthin was taken aback. He had expected the arrow to go winging through the air and embed its point in the tree. He realized that he had not bent the bow sufficiently.
He tried the bow in his right hand and the arrow in his left. He was unusual in this respect, that he was neither right-handed nor left-handed, but a mixture. With the second arrow, he pulled on the bowstring and pushed the bow with all his might, and succeeded in bending them farther than before. This time, the arrow almost reached the tree.
For his third shot he aimed the bow upward, hoping the arrow would fly through the air in an arc and come down into the trunk. But he overcompensated, and the arrow went into the branches, and fell to the ground amid a flurry of dry brown leaves.
Merthin was embarrassed. Archery was more difficult than he had imagined. The bow was probably all right, he guessed: the problem was his own proficiency, or lack of it.
Once again, Caris seemed not to notice his discomfiture. "Let me have a go," she said.
"Girls can't shoot," Ralph said, and he snatched the bow from Merthin. Standing sideways-on to the target, as Merthin had, he did not s
hoot straightaway, but flexed the bow several times, getting the feel of it. Like Merthin, he found it harder than he had at first expected, but after a few moments he seemed to get the hang of it.
Hop had dropped all three arrows at Gwenda's feet, and now the little girl picked them up and handed them to Ralph.
He took aim without drawing the bow, sighting the arrow at the tree trunk, while there was no pressure on his arms. Merthin realized he should have done the same. Why did these things come so naturally to Ralph, who could never answer a riddle? Ralph drew the bow, not effortlessly but with a fluid motion, seeming to take the strain with his thighs. He released the arrow and it hit the trunk of the oak tree, sinking an inch or more into the soft outer wood. Ralph laughed triumphantly.
Hop scampered after the arrow. When he reached the tree, he stopped, baffled.
Ralph was drawing the bow again. Merthin realized what he was intending to do. "Don't--" he said, but he was a moment too late. Ralph shot at the dog. The arrow hit the back of its neck and sunk in. Hop fell forward and lay twitching.
Gwenda screamed. Caris said: "Oh, no!" The two girls ran to the dog.
Ralph was grinning. "What about that?" he said proudly.
"You shot her dog!" Merthin said angrily.
"Doesn't matter--it only had three legs."
"The little girl was fond of it, you idiot. Look at her crying."
"You're just jealous because you can't shoot." Something caught Ralph's eye. With a smooth movement he notched another arrow, swept the bow around in an arc, and fired while it was still moving. Merthin did not see what he was shooting at until the arrow met its target, and a fat hare jumped into the air with the shaft sticking deep into its hindquarters.
Merthin could not hide his admiration. Even with practice, not everyone could hit a running hare. Ralph had a natural gift. Merthin was jealous, although he would never admit it. He longed to be a knight, bold and strong, and fight for the king as his father did; and it dismayed him when he turned out to be hopeless at things such as archery.
Ralph found a stone and crushed the hare's skull, putting it out of its misery.
Merthin knelt beside the two girls and Hop. The dog was not breathing. Caris gently drew the arrow out of its neck and handed it to Merthin. There was no gush of blood: Hop was dead.
For a moment no one spoke. In the silence, they heard a man shout.
Merthin sprang to his feet, heart thudding. He heard another shout, a different voice: there was more than one person. Both sounded aggressive and angry. Some kind of fight was going on. He was terrified, and so were the others. As they stood frozen, listening, they heard another sound, the noise made by a man running headlong through woodland, snapping fallen branches, flattening saplings, trampling dead leaves.
He was coming their way.
Caris spoke first. "The bush," she said, pointing to a big cluster of evergreen shrubs--probably the home of the hare Ralph had shot, Merthin thought. A moment later she was flat on her belly, crawling into the thicket. Gwenda followed, cradling the body of Hop. Ralph picked up the dead hare and joined them. Merthin was on his knees when he realized that they had left a telltale arrow sticking out of the tree trunk. He dashed across the clearing, pulled it out, ran back, and dived under the bush.
They heard the man breathing before they saw him. He was panting hard as he ran, drawing in ragged lungfuls of air in a way that suggested he was almost done in. The shouts were coming from his pursuers, calling to each other: "This way--over here!" Merthin recalled that Caris had said they were not far from the road. Was the fleeing man a traveler who had been set upon by thieves?
A moment later he burst into the clearing.
He was a knight in his early twenties, with both a sword and a long dagger attached to his belt. He was well dressed, in a leather traveling tunic and high boots with turned-over tops. He stumbled and fell, rolled over, got up, then stood with his back to the oak tree, gasping for breath, and drew his weapons.
Merthin glanced at his playmates. Caris was white with fear, biting her lip. Gwenda was hugging the corpse of her dog as if that made her feel safer. Ralph looked scared, too, but he was not too frightened to pull the arrow out of the hare's rump and stuff the dead animal down the front of his tunic.
For a moment the knight seemed to stare at the bush, and Merthin felt, with terror, that he must have seen the hiding children. Or perhaps he had noticed broken branches and crushed leaves where they had pushed through the foliage. Out of the corner of his eye, Merthin saw Ralph notch an arrow to the bow.
Then the pursuers arrived. They were two men-at-arms, strongly built and thuggish-looking, carrying drawn swords. They wore distinctive two-colored tunics, the left side yellow and the right green. One had a surcoat of cheap brown wool, the other a grubby black cloak. All three men paused, catching their breath. Merthin was sure he was about to see the knight hacked to death, and he suffered a shameful impulse to burst into tears. Then, suddenly, the knight reversed his sword and offered it, hilt first, in a gesture of surrender.
The older man-at-arms, in the black cloak, stepped forward and reached out with his left hand. Warily, he took the proffered sword, handed it to his partner, then accepted the knight's dagger. Then he said: "It's not your weapons I want, Thomas Langley."
"You know me, but I don't know you," said Thomas. If he was feeling any fear, he had it well under control. "By your coats, you must be the queen's men."
The older man put the point of his sword to Thomas's throat and pushed him up against the tree. "You've got a letter."
"Instructions from the earl to the sheriff on the subject of taxes. You're welcome to read it." This was a joke. The men-at-arms were almost certainly unable to read. Thomas had a cool nerve, Merthin thought, to mock men who seemed ready to kill him.
The second man-at-arms reached under the sword of the first and grasped the wallet attached to Thomas's belt. Impatiently, he cut the belt with his sword. He threw the belt aside and opened the wallet. He took out a smaller bag made of what appeared to be oiled wool, and drew from that a sheet of parchment, rolled into a scroll and sealed with wax.
Could this fight be about nothing more than a letter? Merthin wondered. If so, what was written on the scroll? It was not likely to be routine instructions about taxes. Some terrible secret must be inscribed there.
"If you kill me," the knight said, "the murder will be witnessed by whoever is hiding in that bush."
The tableau froze for a split second. The man in the black cloak kept his sword point pressed to Thomas's throat and resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder. The one in green hesitated, then looked at the bush.
At that point, Gwenda screamed.
The man in the green surcoat raised his sword and took two long strides across the clearing to the bush. Gwenda stood up and ran, bursting out of the foliage. The man-at-arms leaped after her, reaching out to grab her.
Ralph stood up suddenly, raised the bow and drew it in one fluid motion, and shot an arrow at the man. It went through his eye and sank several inches into his head. His left hand came up, as if to grasp the arrow and pull it out; then he went limp and fell like a dropped sack of grain, hitting the ground with a thump Merthin could feel.
Ralph ran out of the bush and followed Gwenda. At the edge of his vision Merthin perceived Caris going after them. Merthin wanted to flee too, but his feet seemed stuck to the ground.
There was a shout from the other side of the clearing, and Merthin saw that Thomas had knocked aside the sword that threatened him and had drawn, from somewhere about his person, a small knife with a blade as long as a man's hand. But the man-at-arms in the black cloak was alert, and jumped back out of reach. Then he raised his sword and swung at the knight's head.
Thomas dodged aside, but not fast enough. The edge of the blade came down on his left forearm, slicing through the leather jerkin and sinking into his flesh. He roared with pain, but did not fall. With a quick motion that seemed extrao
rdinarily graceful, he swung his right hand up and thrust the knife into his opponent's throat; then, his hand continuing in an arc, he pulled the knife sideways, severing most of the neck.
Blood came like a fountain from the man's throat. Thomas staggered back, dodging the splash. The man in black fell to the ground, his head hanging from his body by a strip.
Thomas dropped the knife from his right hand and clutched his wounded left arm. He sat on the ground, suddenly looking weak.
Merthin was alone with the wounded knight, two dead men-at-arms, and the corpse of a three-legged dog. He knew he should run after the other children, but his curiosity kept him there. Thomas now seemed harmless, he told himself.
The knight had sharp eyes. "You can come out," he called. "I'm no danger to you in this state."
Hesitantly, Merthin got to his feet and pushed his way out of the bush. He crossed the clearing and stopped several feet away from the sitting knight.
Thomas said: "If they find out you've been playing in the forest, you'll be flogged."
Merthin nodded.
"I'll keep your secret, if you'll keep mine."
Merthin nodded again. In agreeing to the bargain, he was making no concessions. None of the children would tell what they had seen. There would be untold trouble if they did. What would happen to Ralph, who had killed one of the queen's men?
"Would you be kind enough to help me bind up this wound?" said Thomas. Despite all that had happened, he spoke courteously, Merthin observed. The knight's poise was remarkable. Merthin felt he wanted to be like that when he was grown up.
At last Merthin's constricted throat managed to produce a word. "Yes."
"Pick up that broken belt, then, and wrap it around my arm, if you would."
Merthin did as he was told. Thomas's undershirt was soaked with blood, and the flesh of his arm was sliced open like something on a butcher's slab. Merthin felt a little nauseated, but he forced himself to twist the belt around Thomas's arm so that it pulled the wound closed and slowed the bleeding. He made a knot, and Thomas used his right hand to pull it tight.
Then Thomas struggled to his feet.
He looked at the dead men. "We can't bury them," he said. "I'd bleed to death before the graves were dug." Glancing at Merthin, he added: "Even with you helping me." He thought for a moment. "On the other hand, I don't want them to be discovered by some courting couple looking for a place to...be alone. Let's lug the guts into that bush where you were hiding. Green coat first."